


I walked with you once upon a dream

by amaresu



Series: Love and Ghosts [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Sparrow Hill Road - Seanan McGuire
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Crossover, Gen, Ghost Stories, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2019-01-21 00:44:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12445635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amaresu/pseuds/amaresu
Summary: It's 2004 and the Soldier sits, waiting for his handlers to finish eating at a roadside diner, when a man with sunshine hair and a blinding smile walks up looking for a ride.  The Soldier knows that he knows the man and the keys are in the ignition.





	I walked with you once upon a dream

The day is hot and the inside of the car stifling, but the Solider sits without moving. He's been trained to wait patiently for hours, days if needed, sitting in a car while his handlers get lunch shouldn't be an issue. But the air is thick and heavy and he's only been given one bottle of water. He's been watching the water condense on the side of the bottle and slide down, debating drinking it. His handlers have been gone for less than 30 minutes though, so he doesn't drink yet.

He looks out the open window next to him to take his mind off the water and sees a man walk up to the roadside diner from the highway. He doesn't seem to be effected by the heat, pausing to lift his face up to the sun. The Soldier stares and for a second imagines standing next to the man with no worries but to feel the heat of the sun on his face. There's something about the man that makes the Soldier think he'd welcome the company. The Soldier lets himself enjoy the fantasy for a second before looking away from the man. He knows better than to think such things and clearly he's been out in the world too long.

He goes back to watching the condensation on the water bottle. He tries to find the silence inside his head that lets him wait without boredom or frustration. Without invasive thoughts he shouldn't have. He forces himself to focus on it so completely that he doesn't hear the sound the shoes on gravel. It's only when the man clears his throat that the Soldier notices he's there. His first reaction is to kill the man and he grips the knife on the side of his leg hard and feels his left arm re-calibrate before he can stop himself. He can't kill someone in the parking lot of a roadside diner. Not without orders to do so at any rate. 

The Soldier looks to see a man standing at his window. He's tall, taller than the Soldier, with blond hair that makes the Solider think of warm summer days. He's wearing cargo pants, a white t-shirt, and has a set of dog tags hanging from his neck. Oddly the man is wearing an old and worn gray cardigan over the top. The man's posture and his dog tags suggests time spent in the military. The stiffness of military standards has faded with time though to show that he's no longer active, not for some years, and for a second jealousy comes on so thick the Soldier fears chocking on it.

He looks at the man and eventually he seems to understand that the Soldier isn't going to say anything. Instead of walking away the man gives him a smile that is almost blinding and makes the Soldier's chest hurt for some reason the Soldier can't pinpoint. The man waves and says quietly, “Hello?”

The Soldier stares at him blankly before inclining his head in greeting. The man is clearly not planning on giving up on whatever he's doing so the Soldier might as well respond. The man seems to take that as permission to walk closer and he leans in the window before wrinkling his nose, “Hot in here. No A/C?”

There is air conditioning. The keys are in the ignition, but the Soldier wasn't given permission to turn the car on and make use of it, something he is horribly angry about before controlling himself. He finds himself speaking without meaning to, something about the man forcing him to react “Why do you care?”

“I'm looking for a ride,” The man smiles at him again and the Soldier is briefly distracted by how bright it is and the way the man's whole face lights up. He misses the next few words lost in that strangely familiar bright smile, but manages to get himself under control enough to hear the end, “-just traveling and seeing the country. You know? See what we all fought for. Where are you headed?” 

He's been out of the ice for almost three months. He knows he always gets erratic when he's out too long. He knows this the same way he knows that disobedience means pain and how to maintain all of his weapons. Knowledge so deep not even the Chair can get rid of it. That same knowledge says he knows the man. He doesn't know how and the man hasn't made any suggestions that he knows the Soldier, but he knows that he knows this man with his bright sunshine hair and blinding smiles. 

He opens his mouth to say something, he's not sure what, but realizes just how thirsty he is, his throat parched and dry. He looks back at the bottle of water and opens it, thinking as he drains it about the cooler full of water in the back of the SUV. He could just reach back and grab one. He's behaving erratically, his thoughts are rebellious. He finds he doesn't care as he finishes the water and says, “There's air conditioning.”

The man smiles again, not the blinding one, but a small one that is just around his eyes and the corner of his mouth. The smile makes the Soldier's brain itch, makes him want to do things he shouldn't. The Soldier wants to reach out and touch the smile hinted at on the man's lips. He keeps enough control of himself not to do that. Instead he opens the door and gets out so he can move to the driver's seat, “I'd like to see the country.”

If he was thinking clearly he would have thought it odd that the man didn't ask about the other people he was with. He would have found it odd that the man didn't ask about what the Soldier was wearing. He would have found it odd that the man didn't introduce himself. Instead he starts the car as the man gets into the passenger seat and drives out of the parking lot, picking a direction at random. He keeps driving, picking a random direction at every intersection. 

After the first hour the man breaks the silence and asks to put on the radio. The satellite radio sends a shiver of fear through the Soldier. His thinking is clearly compromised if he hadn't thought about GPS tracking prior to the man's request. His thinking is erratic, he needs to go in for maintenance, but he's compromised enough to decide that he will fight returning to Hydra with everything he has. 

He knows this isn't the first time he's run away from his handlers and the knowledge of the previous attempt leaves him wanting to pull the SUV over and curl into a ball. His behavior is against all of his training, but he knows he can't be caught. He refuses to be caught again. Looking at the man with the sunshine hair quietly singing along with the radio the Soldier holds in a shudder. Hydra will not be gentle to the person who stole their weapon, no matter how little he meant to do just that.

They need to ditch the SUV. They need new transportation. A green mileage sign comes up on the side of the road proclaiming that they are 50 miles out from St Louis and the knot that had been forming in the Soldier's chest releases some of the tension. They can find a new car in a major city. He won't be caught again. The man won't be killed on the side of the road. “We'll get a new car in St Louis.”

The man smiles at him, the small one that's mostly in his eyes and makes the Soldier want to touch. The man leans back against the seat closing his eyes, giving all appearances of settling in. They listen to the music as the Soldier drives them into St Louis. He knows that this is not normal behavior. He should be questioning the man. He should be demanding answers about why the man is so willing to just go with him, but he doesn't. He needs to spend his energy on formulating how he's going to escape for good this time. For now he's willing to accept that the man is important in some way and plans for the man to be with him. 

It's not logical, but nothing he's done since the man walked up to him in the parking lot of the roadside diner has been.

He pulls into the long-term parking at the airport. If Hydra catches up to them quickly it'll leave a wealth of options for where he went. If they don't there's a decent chance the SUV will be stolen. Either way it buys them time. He leaves the keys in the ignition and moves to the back, opening it up and going through the equipment stored there. The man follows him and starts opening bags of clothing left by the Soldier's handlers and dumping them out, “We'll just take things that'll fit you.”

It's the work of moments to strip out of his tac gear and pull on clean clothes. He sorts out things that will fit him and tries to add things that look like they'll fit the man, but he stop the Soldier from adding them. He doesn't give an explanation, just removes them from the bag. The only thing the man adds are the coats, all the coats. From there the Soldier takes the twenty thousand in emergency funds and the appropriate fake id stored with the roadside emergency kit before hesitating over the weaponry. 

With the money he could buy new stuff. Leaving it will leave open the idea that he took a plane. But it makes him itch to think of not taking anything. Eventually he settles for a couple of knives and one gun. The man smiles at him again and picks up one of the bags as the Soldier secures his chosen weapons. Less than a minute later and everything left over is packed back into the SUV and they make their way into the airport. From there the Soldier leads them to the hotel shuttles, avoiding cameras whenever possible. 

The man still doesn't say anything. He doesn't question what the Soldier is doing or why. The Soldier knows he should be worried. He knows he should leave the man, move on without him. But all the man has to do is smile that hidden smile, the one that is barely there at the corner of his lips, and the Soldier knows he can't leave the man. Knows he'll let this man follow him for as long as the man wants.

They catch the first hotel shuttle that is pulling away, not paying much attention to what hotel it's going to. It doesn't matter where they are headed, they won't be staying there. It's already late when they get off the shuttle, but the man doesn't complain when they walk around the corner and get into a cab and head across the city to another hotel where they get into another cab. The Soldier spends an hour moving between hotels and cabs before ending at the Greyhound station and buying two tickets for the first bus leaving. 

It's possible Hydra could follow their route, but it will be hard and time consuming. They'll be in Houston long before Hydra untangles their web of travels. It's only as they're standing in line to get on the bus that he really stops to look at the man who'd been traveling with him and acknowledges how weird the man's behavior has been. The man is holding the bus ticket in his hand with a bemused expression on his face, “I don't remember the last time I was on a bus.”

“Why are you doing this?” The Soldier demands as they climb aboard the bus. It's one thing for the Soldier to follow hidden instincts, but the man hasn't questioned anything. He speaks quietly, trying to avoid people overhearing. He knows that this is a bad place to finally have this conversation, yet is unable to help himself.

The man grabs a window seat halfway back and shoves his bag between his legs on the floor, “Because.”

The Soldier stands in the aisle waiting for further information long enough that the person behind him pushes his shoulder to get him moving. With a growl he sits down and doesn't punch the man who was behind him. Storing his own bag he leans into the man's personal space and growls in a barely audible whisper, “Because isn't an answer. Give me a fucking answer Steve.”

The man looks at him in astonishment and only then does he realize he called the man by a name. A name he knows is the man's in that same bone deep way he knew he knew the man when he walked up in the parking lot. The man, Steve, gives him the blinding sunshine smile, “Because it's the first time you've wanted to go. It's the first time you've remembered me.”

The implications of Steve's answer is terrifying. It means that this wasn't the first time Steve had approached him. It's not the first time he's been offered a chance to run. He breaths out slowly, thanking the back to back missions that kept him out of the ice for so long. He doesn't want to think of the number of times Steve has tried to get him away from Hydra. He wants to know what Steve knows, “You're Steve. Who am I?”

There's the blinding smile that he still doesn't have an answer to and Steve leans in so his head is almost on the Soldier's shoulder. He kisses the Soldier right where his jaw meets his neck, under his ear, quickly and gently. The man then whispers quietly in his ear, “I'm Steven Grant Rogers. You're James Buchanan Barnes. Although you always went by Bucky. Too many James when we were growing up.”

“Steve. Bucky.” He whispers in response. He can almost feel the shape of the names in his head. He can feel his brain trying to make the connections and it's exhausting. Leaning against Steve he lets himself sleep.

He wakes several hours later, his brain still feeling like it's piecing together a puzzle without any idea of what the final product is supposed to look like. He wakes up and his head is filled with information from before Hydra, his brain throwing up bits and pieces of connected parts of the massive puzzle that is his past. It's more than he's ever had before and he can't breath for the wonder of it at first. He spends a few blessed minutes examining the bits he can feel of his memories fitting together.

Eventually he has to open his eyes though and he realizes that they've pulled into a truck stop. People are slowly exiting the bus as sunrise starts to light up the sky in the distance. He looks at Steve next to him, “You're mother's name was Sarah. I had three sisters. We shared a bed in the winter.”

He doesn't get the blinding smile this time, just the small one that sits at Steve's eyes and this time he lets himself trace the edges of the smile on Steve's lips. It's almost shocking when Steve kisses his fingers, “Come on, you can buy me a coffee and a crappy breakfast sandwich. Also, I'm going to need a new coat.”

He doesn't understand the coat, but if Steve wants a new coat he'll give Steve a new coat. He'll give him all the coats and crappy breakfast sandwiches he wants if Steve will kiss his fingers again. He finds himself smiling back, a shy thing he's not sure is even showing up on his face right, before standing up to exit the bus behind everyone else. They both grab their bags, not wanting to leave them unattended.

The coat thing is odd, but everything is by this point. The Soldier isn't sure what wouldn't be odd. Steve makes him pick one out of the bag while Steve looks at the horizon. He looks concerned and it must be a trick of the light because it almost looks like the cardigan Steve is wearing falls through him as he takes the new coat. Bucky blinks and thinks that it must be the blinding first rays reaching over the horizon. Steve doesn't act like anything is wrong so he doesn't say anything as they walk across the parking lot to the store.

Bucky sees the sign on the truck while they're making their way through a pile of preheated sandwiches from the hot food display. It's not the worst thing Bucky's ever eaten, but he's also lived off of specially designed protein shakes at times, so that's not saying much. He's handing Steve another sandwich, not questioning why he can't just grab it out of the pile in front of both of them, when the For Sale sign catches his eye. 

He walks over and looks at the truck. It's an old Ford, brown and beaten down, but there aren't any rust spots even though the tail gate is held on with twine. It's an extended cab and the interior is clean, clearly well cared for. There's a phone number on the sign and without really thinking about it he finds himself walking back into the store. He buys a cheap disposable phone and is back out in minutes. He pauses on his walk back when he sees Steve talking with some woman. 

She's older, maybe somewhere in her fifties, with gray hair and glasses on a beaded chair hanging around her neck. She's wearing well worn clothes, jean everything, and she's laughing at something Steve has said. He watches them for a second before Steve waves at him, “Bucky! This is Mable. She was just making sure I had a ride.”

“Bucky?” The woman looks at him and briefly pulls her glasses up to examine him through them. Something about the look makes him want to stand up straighter and double check that his clothes are clean. “Steve finally got you to come with him then?”

“Yes, ma'am.” He responds before he can think about it, surprising himself and liking the way Bucky sounds when she says it. Something in his chest warms at her question as well. Of course Steve has been trying to get him away from Hydra. It makes sense in the deep hidden places inside him. He walks around them, noticing that Steve hasn't taken any more of the sandwiches out of the pile even though Bucky's sure he wants another one. 

“Ma'am,” Mable snorts and points at Steve, “Reminds me of this one when I first met him. You looking to buy old Jorge's truck?”

“Maybe,” Bucky gets the phone powered on and starts dialing the number. “We'll see.”

Steve walks over and runs his hand along Bucky's back before leaning against the truck, “I like her. This old girl's still got a lot of love to give.”

“That she does,” Mable agrees as she walks over and trails her hand along the side. “She may not look like much, but Jorge put a lot of love into her before his accident. Not her fault he can't drive no more. She'll get you where you need to go and watch out for you along the way.”

It strikes him as another odd thing the way they're talking about the truck, but he doesn't have a chance to say anything before the phone picks up. It's a short conversation, the gist being that Jorge's granddaughter would be out to talk to him about the truck. “Grandpa's having a bad day and doesn't want to get into his chair,” is what she says. Bucky can guess at the accident that stopped Jorge from driving.

It'll take her an hour and they watch as the bus pulls off without them. Mable goes into the store and comes back with a pint of ice cream she hands Steve with a smile and a wink before climbing back into her own car, an old station wagon from the 80s, every door a different color. She looks at Bucky before she gets ready to leave. There's a pause and then she grabs his hand, the left one, and doesn't even look at him funny over how it must feel in her hand, “You get your head on straight, get away from the people who had you, come drive the Ocean Lady. We'll have a place for you there. If you want it.”

Steve gives him a look that Bucky doesn't know how to interpret as Mable drives off. They've got time to kill and he sits down at their picnic table, pile of sandwiches grown cold. Steve shares his cookie dough ice cream and tells Bucky the story of the old Atlantic Highway. There's something about the story of a highway that spanned the length of the continent, broken to contain her power, that draws Bucky in. “How can I drive her then? If they broke her up and changed her course?”

Steve smiles at him and licks the last bit of ice cream off his spoon, “She's still there if you know how to look. Listen to the roads and they'll guide you.”

Steve is clearly done talking about it. He packs the extra sandwiches into one of the bags and sips his coffee even though Bucky is sure it's long since gone cold. With a grin he stretches out on the bench and uses Bucky's leg as a pillow. Bucky's almost positive that Steve doesn't go to sleep, but he closes his eyes and lets Bucky run his fingers through his hair. The time until Jorge's granddaughter shows up in quiet and pleasant and Bucky wishes it could last forever. 

It's surprising easy to buy the truck. Bucky passes over the money, signs the title, and promises to register at the county office. He thinks he even will. It may not be under his name, but it's the first thing he can remember buying for himself since forever. He finds himself staring at the truck after everything is said and done, running his fingers along the outside, with tears falling down his face. Steve hugs him from behind and kisses his neck and it's the most perfect moment he's ever felt.

He doesn't push the issue of Steve's weirdness for the next week. Instead he hands Steve his food and drinks. Even if Steve buys them they do a weird dance of Steve giving everything to him and Bucky handing it back. He gives Steve a new coat every morning. He doesn't ask why Steve never has to change his clothes, doesn't have clothes to change into, and why they change anyways. He doesn't ask about how he swears he can hear the road trying to tell him something as they lay in the bed of his truck at night. 

For a week he doesn't ask and when the question comes it's not in the manner he thought it would. His memories had been coming back slowly, in fits and starts, the puzzle filling out slowly, but some things were unavoidable in their awkwardness when he needs confirmation. They're laying in the bed of Bucky's truck, staring at the stars, when Bucky finally asks for clarification on something he's been trying to make sense of for days. “We fought in World War II. I fell off that train and Hydra found me. I was in cryo for most of the last sixty years.”

“Yes,” Steve says it slowly, reluctantly drawing out the word and Bucky knows he's on the right track. “We were best friends before that.”

Bucky grins to himself in victory at Steve's obvious attempt at misdirection. He knows Steve is trying to avoid this subject. It's tied up in everything else. Whatever it is Steve is afraid to tell Bucky, but Bucky can't figure out why. Steve was Steve, Bucky knew him when he didn't know himself. He can't imagine what Steve could reveal that would change that. “How did you survive?”

Bucky waits because his phone has internet and the diners they stop at have TVs that sit on the History Channel when they aren't on some 24 hour news channel, Fox or CNN. He knows that Steve put down his plane to save the eastern seaboard, but he doesn't know how Steve lived through it or why no one knows. Next to him Steve sighs and rolls into his side, pillowing his head on Bucky's shoulder, pressing a quick kiss into it, “I didn't Buck. I'm dead. I've been dead since 1945 when I crashed the plane. They ever find the thing and they'll find my body frozen inside it.”

Bucky sits up and looks at Steve. Steve who'd rolled onto his back and is looking up at Bucky. Steve who smiles his half-smile, eyes sad in the low light of the moon and his lips twisted halfway up. “Not sure how I ended up a hitcher, planes are in transit I suppose and there aren't really any plane ghosts.”

“You're dead?” It's not really a question and Bucky's voice lacks inflection. He pokes Steve, pushing against the hard muscle of his side. 

“Ah, yes,” Steve says, somewhat embarrassed as he finally sits up too. He shrugs and the coat he's wearing falls through him and onto the bed of the truck. Steve's clothes morph and change and he's wearing the old uniform from the war. Steve grimaces at it, “Figures. Hitchers always revert to the clothes they died in eventually.”

This time when Bucky reaches out to poke Steve his finger goes through him. He stands up and jumps out of the truck. He walks a few feet away and looks at Steve still sitting in the bed. As he watches Steve's clothes revert back to the look Bucky is used to, cargo pants with a white t-shirt and dog tags hanging around his neck, “Explain.”

Steve walks through the truck and Bucky doesn't know what to do with that. Steve smiles the little eye smile that Bucky loves so much and stops just short of him, “Hitchers are a type of road ghost. We travel the roads, my territory stretches from the farthest northeast corner of Nunavut  
in Canada to just above the Rio Grande.”

“Territory.” He's just repeating things at this point, but he's not sure how he's supposed to react. What the appropriate response to being told that you've been traveling with a ghost is. “Where you can go?”

“Yeah,” Steve rubs the back of his head and it reminds Bucky of a million things he can't remember. “I can't go all the way west in Canada. The lower 48 are okay, but I'll never make it to Calgary let alone Alaska. It gets hard to move, a stretching sensation.”

Buck tries to picture it, hitchhiking through the decades because that's what Steve has to mean by hitcher. He can't wrap his head around it. “The coats. Food?”

“It's what makes road ghosts unique.” Steve smiles his quiet smile again. “Give us a coat and we can borrow life for the day. I put a coat on that you give me and I get to be alive until the next sunrise. My heart beats. I feel warm, it's so cold being dead Buck, you have no idea. I can only eat food that's freely given to me though. Everything else is ashes in my mouth.”

It makes a strange sort of sense and matches the behavior Steve hadn't explained at all. One thing snags in his mind and he has to confirm what Steve said, “You're cold?”

“Always,” Steve shrugs like it's just another thing. 

Bucky knows what it's like to be cold down through to your core and he knows now that Steve froze in that plane. He remembers without seeing the details that he spent years making sure Steve wasn't cold in the winter. Years of knitting blankets out of old yarn scraps they collected all year long. Years of huddling with Steve under the blankets in the depths of January as the wind blew harsh and sharp, shaking their windows. Years of making sure Steve was never colder than it he had to be. Without thinking he pulls off his coat and hands it to Steve, “You shouldn't be cold.”

“Thanks, Buck.” Steve says as he pulls on the coat and Bucky can see the change in his skin as he pulls the coat on. “I'll have to be cold sometimes though. I can't stay with you forever.”

“Why?” It comes out angry and Bucky doesn't care. He just got Steve back and now Steve is saying he's going to leave. He's not sure when he decided to just accept that Steve was dead, but he has and he's not going to lose Steve again. “I can keep giving you coats.”

Steve laughs, long and loud and filled with joy, “I'd love you for that if nothing else Bucky. But I can't just keep taking coats from you. I'm surprised I've been able stay this long. We serve a purpose.”

“A purpose?” One day Bucky's going to be brave enough to talk about how Steve keeps saying he loves him, about how Steve keeps kissing him. He'll need to get through this conversation first. “Ghosts have a purpose?”

Steve closes the final few steps between them and Bucky wraps his arms around him. They stand next to the road in the dead of the night and Steve buries his face in Bucky's neck and tells him about life as a road ghost, “We're psychopomps. Homecomers and hitchhikers. We guide those who die on the road and make sure they find their way past the last exit. Sometimes I can stop an accident, help people make it home safe. We make the roads safer. I can't stay with you forever because people will die that don't need to, people will be left wandering the roads that shouldn't.”

If he accepts that ghosts exist and he's apparently doing that, he can accept that ghosts have a place in the world. If Steve could save people he can't stop him from doing it. “How long will I have you?”

“I don't know.” Steve kisses his neck and Bucky hums in response. “I'll know when I have to leave and if you stay on the roads I'll be able to find you.”

He tries to imagine a life of traveling the roads and picking up Steve. Never getting to keep him, but getting him for awhile. He has enough of his memories back to know that it's a bargain he would always take. He also has Hydra to consider. He needs to keep moving to stay ahead of them anyway, even if he hasn't seen any sign of them yet. It doesn't sound like a bad life. Not perfect, but he gave up on perfection a long time ago. He does have one lingering question that needs to be answered, “What was Mable?”

Steve laughs, low and quiet, before kissing his neck again. He tilts his head up and kisses Bucky's jaw as well, soft and quick. “Mable is a routewitch. They live on the roads, work with them, always moving, they get power from age and distance traveled. The closest thing they have to a central base is on the Ocean Lady. I think Mable was offering you an apprenticeship.”

He holds Steve to him, breathing in his scent and the night air, listening to the crickets chirping and what he knows is the quiet grumbling of the road they parked next to. He's not ready for that life just yet, but he thinks he might be in the future. He'll have more questions in the morning, about ghosts and roads and anything else he can think of. Tomorrow he'll ask how many times Steve tried to hitch a ride with him before Bucky finally let him in. For now though he pulls back from Steve and finally meets Steve's lips with his own. 

This, he knows deep down in the hidden parts of his soul that remembers things beyond memory, is new for all that Steve has been peppering him with kisses all week. This brush of lips and tongues, the hands reaching under shirts and down pants, this is a new thing. New to this time and place, friendship too precious to risk in the past. It's good and wonderful and he carefully backs Steve up to the truck without breaking the kiss. 

It's not a magical happy ever after. Bucky has swiss cheese for brains and Steve is fucking dead. Neither of them are are the people they used to be. Bucky buys new weapons every time he passes a gun show in the middle of the American Heartland. Steve never has an opinion on where to go and rarely on how to get there. Bucky's paranoid and Steve's passive in a way that only makes sense when Bucky thinks about how he's been a passenger for his entire afterlife, twice as long as he was alive.

The Steve he knew back before everything would never take a handout. This Steve lives on handouts, as much as ghosts can live, “Disney World is always fun, if you can get there. I always have trouble, end up in Georgia or something instead. Florida is full of carnies and circus folk, people who've lived on the road. The big parks always have someone willing to give out a coat and some food vouchers. It's a good way to spend a day.”

“Do you still throw up on roller coasters?” Bucky asks as the memory of Steve vomiting all over his shoes comes back to him. 

Steve snorts, “Horribly enough, yes.”

Bucky has terrible nightmares and days where he can't do anything beside lay on his back in the bed of his truck. “I never should've left with you. I'm defective. I should find Hydra and let them erase me.”

“No, Bucky, no,” Steve says as he combs his fingers through Bucky's hair. He hums and tells him stories about the different types of ghosts in the world. “Ever-lasters, proving that even in death I'm fucking awful with children.”

Eventually Steve has to leave him, “There's an accident. A bad one. I can smell it on the wind, cherry blossoms and gun powder. Lots of people are going to die.”

Bucky drops him off on the side of the highway in Kansas. Steve kisses him and Bucky holds him tight, “What if I can't find you again?”

Steve gives him the sad half-smile, “Stay on the roads and I'll find you.”

One of the things that hasn't changed about Steve is his sense of duty. Bucky knows that there's nothing he could say to keep Steve from doing what he thinks is his job, his purpose in death. Bucky's not sure he really wants to if he's being honest. People don't deserve to be stranded after they die. 

With one last kiss he lets Steve go and walks backwards to his truck. Steve grabs him as he's opening the door, kisses him hard, and drops his coat on the road. It's Steve turn to walk backwards while Bucky watches, seeming to fade into the background, “I love you James Buchanan Barnes. I'll come back to you.”

The funny thing is Bucky doesn't doubt it for a second. He'll stick to the roads and listen to the stories they have to tell. He'll stockpile coats and make box lunches. He'll explore the dusty back roads and check out some of the tourist traps Steve has told him about.

Maybe he'll take up Mable on her offer.


End file.
